Tony Stark is in a coma but a new hero is ready to step up into the suit: teenage girl genius Riri Williams is... Ironheart!
It took me a while to get around to reading this one because the whole concept felt so contrived and an utterly transparent and eye-rolling attempt at Marvel being overly PC – rich white guy Iron Man is now middle class black girl Ironheart because forced diversity! Ugh… except the book’s actually good?!
Like Miles Morales’ first book, Brian Bendis nails the new hero’s origin story. Yeah, it’s unoriginal and generic: tragic loss, conveniently getting all the sparkly toys immediately, learning to use them, effortlessly taking down villains right out the gate. But there’s something to be said about the structure of superhero comics and why this template is used so often – when it’s done well like this, it’s undeniably compelling.
And Bendis really gets to the core of why people like Marvel so much: the book is fun and exciting, you want to be like the heroes in the story and you want to see more of them doing stuff. I do like Riri – she’s much more rounded than I’d expected – and I liked the way the plot came together. Coupled with the fast pacing, it was never boring to read. Stefano Caselli’s art is first rate – it’s as skilful and breathtakingly slick as David Marquez’s was on Bendis’ first Invincible Iron Man book.
Bendis remains weak on writing villains – they are one-dimensional ciphers, only there for the hero to hit. Why’re they villains? Because they’re villains. Hmm. Underwritten as always. And this one – the Techno Golem – is especially pitiful. If she, wearing a giant Iron Man suit, flanked by ninjas wielding lightsabers, can’t take out armor-less Pepper Potts and a skinny teen girl with no fighting skills, how dangerous can she be? There’s never any dramatic tension in those scenes as Riri and Pepper can’t be beaten no matter what.
The name “Ironheart” is kinda cringey to begin with but it turned out to be even more embarrassing after, in a hilarious DC-esque faux-pas, it was revealed that Marvel had inadvertently named their latest female empowerment/diversity character after a Japanese porn parody of Iron Man! Why didn’t anyone google the name first?!
The ending didn’t do much for me – I don’t really care for the Champions or Latveria in general, so the next one might not be good – but Ironheart, Volume 1: Riri Williams turned out to be Bendis’ last great Marvel book before he left. Give it a chance, it’ll surprise you!
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